A prominent euthanasia activist is among several people who have been arrested after an American woman was found strangled to death inside one of Philip “Dr. Death” Nitschke’s so-called “suicide pods.”
Reuters reported that several people had been arrested by the Swiss police for “inducing and aiding and abetting suicide.”
Police launched an investigation after a 64-year-old American woman with a compromised immune system died in a so-called “Sarco” suicide capsule.
The death occurred “in a wood in the municipality of Merishausen” on September 23.
Among those arrested was pro-euthanasia group The Last Resort leader Florian Willet.
Willet was reportedly present when the woman died.
The “Sarco” pod—short for “sarcophagus”—is the brainchild of Philip “Dr. Death” Nitschke.
Nitschke has previously been accused of attempting to glamorize “assisted suicide” through his slick, 3D-printed capsule.
The capsule proved controversial even in Switzerland, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1942 for those considered to have “sound” judgment.
On the side of the capsule is a quote by pop scientist Carl Sagan:
“We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
As Slay News previously reported, Nitschke designed the pod so that people could climb inside and be euthanized with “the push of a button.”
Pushing the button fills the sealed pod with nitrogen gas.
In theory, the person should be put to sleep, and then die by suffocation.
According to Willet, everything went off without a hitch and the woman was euthanized.
The woman, identified only as an American and mother of two, died in the middle of a forest, as planned.
The capsule had never been used before, and Sarco inventor Philip Nitschke attempted to follow the process by video call but missed some of what went on due to technical difficulties.
Willet insisted that this is what happened.
He was the only person present for the woman’s death, which he described as “peaceful, fast, and dignified.”
However, police found evidence to confirm that the woman didn’t die in the way Willet claims.
The Swiss chief prosecutor of the case, Peter Sticher, discovered that the death might have gone quite differently.
Sticher revealed that investigators found evidence that the woman had been strangled to death in a case of “intentional homicide,” reports the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant.
The newspaper reports that the pod was opened and closed several times before the woman pressed the button which triggered the procedure, to test its closure.
A forensic doctor present at the scene told the court that the woman had, among other things, severe injuries to her neck.
According to the news outlet, Willet, who was standing beside the woman throughout the event, was heard telling the pod’s designer over video call: “She’s still alive, Philip.”
The comments came six-and-a-half minutes after the user pressed the button to end her own life.
Willet is said to have been confused by the sound of an alarm – thought to be a heart-rate monitor.
The court heard how he continued to lean over the Sarco pod to peer inside before the alarm ceased.
Police had previously warned Sarco’s operators that prosecution would follow any usage of the capsule.
However, they did not appear to suspect how grim the situation might become.
The Last Resort insisted that the woman opted for Sarco because she had “skull base osteomyelitis.”
The organization argued that the condition caused her “severe pain” for “at least two years.”
Two lawyers “involved with the project” who were also present at the scene of the alleged “suicide” alerted the police of her death.
The police then swept the forest and arrested everyone in the vicinity, including a press photographer.
Chief Prosecutor Peter Sticher told the Swiss outlet Blick:
“We warned them in writing, we said that if they came to Schaffhausen and used Sarco, they would face criminal consequences.”
All those involved with the Sarco death have been released with the exception of Willet.
Sticher noted that a “criminal investigation into the pod is underway and all of the 371 active applications have been suspended for use.”
Nitschke is defending his invention, insisting that the woman “almost immediately” pressed the button after climbing into the capsule.
“She didn’t really say anything,” he claimed.
“She really wanted to die.
“My estimate is that she lost consciousness within two minutes and that she died after five minutes.”
Questions around the woman’s death hark back to a similar case a year ago, where a young woman being euthanized in Belgium was allegedly suffocated by the euthanasia practitioner.
The woman’s family said they could hear her screams as she was smothered with a pillow when the lethal injection failed to kill her.
https://slaynews.com/news/euthanasia-activist-arrested-dead-woman-found-strangled-inside-suicide-pod/
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